Lately, my wife and I have noticed the subtitles are getting higher and higher in the television pictures. It won’t be long before they end up smack in the middle of the screen. All the subtitling of the Channel 4 programs this evening have been located consistently high and blocking the pictures. Channel 4 is not the only culprit as BBC is starting to do the same, especially during Wimbledon (blocking out the scores). Sometimes, they let the subtitles “hang” when the spoken dialogue have already been uttered a long time ago and there is a lack of dialogue on screen.
I will be making a complaint regarding this as it is lack of thought on the subtitlers’ part as it is really annoying and spoiling our viewing pleasure. Does anyone else share the same irritation as we do?
Okey, whinge’s over.
I completely agree. Instead of blocking the picture the subtitling houses should raise it to the top of the screen completely to avoid blocking anything as seen in adverts. I believe they do this on some of the music channels already. You should write to subtitling@bbc.co.uk to complain and make suggestions… I believe that the same company subtitles BBC and C4.
Oh, I intend to but ran out of brainpower last night after I posted this. I’ll do it tonight after I have done other things to do, around the house. I wish the subtitlers to have better awareness of the programmes’ contents and be more tactful about the positioning of their subtitles. I acknowledge this is hard to do for “live” programmes but it is achievable and certainly do-able for pre-recorded programmes. Have you ever seen this film “Hear No Evil” made by Wellington Films back in 2002? That is a fine example of intelligent use of subtitles.